I was born during the Great Depression and lived on a farm. We didn't go to church.
Going to church
Going to church has not always been a part of my life. I didn’t join a church until I got married. I was 18 years old. But, before that, I seldom went to church.
This picture is one of St. Mark's Methodist Church in San Antonio.
My mother was raised a Baptist. I don’t remember Mother talking to us about it much. I knew she went to church when she was younger, when she lived in Coleman County. But she did talk about God. She gave us kids a bible for Christmas when I was 10 years old. I used to teach my brother’s and sisters Sunday school lessons out of that bible. Of course, I was the teacher. Wasn’t I the oldest? But we didn’t go to church.
She taught us to say our prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”. That used to scare me. I didn’t want God to take my soul. What was my soul any way? Whatever it was, I didn’t want him to take it. It was mine.
But Daddy mentioned God a lot. Well, he used God’s name in vain for one thing. Which was most of the time. But he also used to sing us wonderful old hymns, like “When the Roll is called up Yonder” and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”.
I would browse through old things up in our attic; I would always be drawn to the big religious books up there. They were big, heavy books. I would try to read them when I learned to read. They were too hard to read. I couldn’t understand them. But they did have great pictures! I found out they belonged to Daddy’s father, who was a Preacher.
I know now that it was very hard for Mother and Daddy to take us to church. All we had was a wagon, and there were not any churches in that part of Wilson County..and then when we did get an automobile, we were not close to any Baptist or Methodist churches. There were mostly Lutheran and Catholic Churches in that area of Wilson County. Mother and Daddy didn’t go to church until they moved to San Antonio in 1957. They joined the Harlandale Methodist Church. They both recommitted their lives to the Lord. They loved going to church and did so when they could until they passed away, in 1984 and 1994.
When my aunt Gladys took me at the age of five and kept me for four months, (the story is in my book), I went to the Catholic Church with her. That was my first experience with going to church. It was sort of scary. I was scared of the nuns and the priests. When the priest would swing that thing that smelled really weird, it intrigued me. I hoped it wouldn’t get on me! But I liked their Sunday school since there were other little kids like me there. And I liked the bible stories they told us.
I did not go to church after that for 9 years. It was 1948 and I was 14. That’s when I went to Poth High School. All my friends went to a Lutheran or Catholic Church. I went to the Lutheran church once with my friend Jenny Lee. I liked it, but it was hard for me to understand why people went to church. I knew there was a God, believed in Him, so why do they have to go to church? It just seemed the thing everyone did!
I didn’t go to a church again until the day I got married, which was in the First Methodist Church of Floresville. December 30, 1950. I was 18 years old. I found out the Methodist church was my heritage.
My father and all his brothers and sisters and mother had gone there from about 1911 to 1924, when my grandmother died. My grandfather was pastor of the Hispanic Methodist church. And I found out later, there was a Sunday School Class in the First Methodist Church named for my grandmother, Elizabeth Zook. How perfect! Her picture was on the wall in the room where the class was conducted.
The week after we got married we found the Alamo Methodist Church down the street from our little apartment on Madison, in the King William area in San Antonio. We decided to start going to church. The next week, we joined the church. It seemed the thing to do. That was the first time in my life that I had committed to a church or to God. They no longer have a church in the famous old building. I think it is an historic building.
We went to Alamo Methodist until we moved a few months later to the South side on McMullen. We had to take the bus to church, go downtown and transfer, so we didn’t go too often after that.
In 1954, we bought our first house, in the Dellview area. Our new neighbors across the street invited us to go to St. Mark’s Methodist Church. So we joined the next Sunday. We stayed there as members for 14 years. I loved that church. It became our home away from home.
I loved the sermons, the singing (I was talked into joining the choir). We had all four of our children baptized as babies there. They all went to Sunday school, Scouts, the MYF (youth group), sat in church every Sunday morning and went to Sunday night Vespers Services. They learned how to be quiet in church. Once in awhile Eddie would have to pinch Julie, when she would get too loud with her talking, and if that didn’t work, take her nearby to the “cry room”. I was in the choir, remember!
We went to a Sunday school class called the Koinanian’s. It was a large class with lots of young couples like us. We had great teaching from a wonderful old man named Fred Foster.
We had parties, pot luck suppers, and helped with projects around the church. I joined the W.S.C.S - Women’s Society of Christian Service and they had “Circle Meetings”. Eddie was Superintendent of the Junior Department Sunday school and taught a class.
Eddie was Scout Master of Boy Scout Troop 87 at the church for 14 years and when Trent was old enough he joined.
I loved going to church, and our whole life centered round it. We became good friends with the pastors and had numerous friends to play bridge with. Our friends there were always a part of our picnics and cookouts. One of the pastor’s sons was a good friend to Trent.
Sometimes when I was singing in the choir, during those years of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, I would tear up and could not sing. I never knew why. I just knew that moment was a special time in my life. Our choir director, Harry White, was so gifted and he taught us to sing The Messiah, and I sang alto. We sang parts of it at Christmas time and at Easter. I loved the Christmas and Easter seasons and all the festivities and candle light services. I felt close to God there.
I began to understand why people went to church. We moved to the Dallas Ft. Worth area in 1968. We joined another Methodist church. From 1968 to 1983 we went to church dutifully, but for some reason our hearts were not in it. I think I was trying to find another St. Mark’s Methodist Church. Our two young children, Derek and Kristi suffered because of it. They didn’t know what it was like to be involved as a family in a loving relationship with believers in a church. Church was boring to them. Church became boring to all of us. They had no friends in church and neither did we!
In 1983, after a tragedy in our family brought us to the right church, a Methodist Church in Bedford, one where there was so much love and teaching about the Lord and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, we knew we needed that warm touch of Christians who would support and care for us and we stayed and got involved with the church.
We worshipped in that church for the next 18 years. We again developed tons of friends, who helped us through bad times and celebrated the good times.
But it wasn’t until 1985 that I understood why we went to church. That’s when I knew it had to do with a personal relationship with God. And it was the fellowship and worship with other believers every week that helped us to get through another week. We got a refreshing every Sunday.
I have a spiritual heritage in my family. It goes way back to my grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of my family, from the Church of the Brethren, Methodist, Baptist, or Church of God, or Amish, and lots of preachers and missionaries.
I love the smell of old churches, and the beauty of the stained glass windows, and carved altars and wooden pews. When I walk in one, I can feel the presence of the all the people who have gone before me, and know they worshiped God in this place.
I love church. The church we go to now is a contemporary church in Floresville, TX. Floresville Christian Fellowship is the name. But sometimes I miss the old traditional church worship. But the important thing is to worship God where ever you are. And that is what I do. Sometimes I stay home and worship the Lord.
A very interesting and well-written story your life and your churches.
My heritage on my mother's side is Old Order Amish. My grandmother on my father's side was very religious but I don't know what church she went to. From early on in the small town we lived, we went to the Congregational church. Moving to a larger city, we didn't go to church but I recall going to a friend's Lutheran Church and attending weddings of our family in Catholic churches. When we moved to another city we joined the Presbyterian Church, but did not go very often. In high school, my brother and I were part of the youth group. Dancing was forbidden by the church, but our youth group members had a lot of parties where we danced to rock 'n roll. My brother and I joined the Methodist Boy Scout troop because it was a better troop. Later, my younger brothers joined the Presbyterian Boy Scout troop, and my father, although not a churchgoer, became the scoutmaster… To my surprise. I was in college at that time enjoying the Methodist ecumenical youth group and later became president. Like today, there was much apathy, but I got involved in civil rights and the effort to end the Vietnam War, and found that the very rewarding. At the Quadrennial Conference of the Methodist Church in Lincoln Nebraska in 1964, I got to listen to Martin Luther King live on New Year's Eve, 1965.
In grad school I decided that all of the ritual was great for community building but not very
truthful to life and became an atheist. I do miss the fellowship of others, but not the constant repetition of old myths that have no real meaning today.
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Going to church
